Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Harley Quinn #2


I guess it's okay for Amanda Conner to sneak a zombie finger sliding up Harley's clown car. But it would be wrong if Frank Cho drew this, right?

The Commentary!
Tumblr has that "Recommended Blogs" column off to the right on the home page which I sometimes click on but mostly ignore. But I think I need to ignore it forever now because just looking at it depresses the fuck out of me. Thanks, Tumblr, for recommending Monster Man's blog so that I could click over to see some "Monsters Forever" and be greeted with this post:

Hi all, on Sunday, June 12th, the Monsterman passed away. He leaves behind his beautiful daughter and me his loving wife. Running this site gave him so much joy. We will miss him and love him always.

I suppose I shouldn't complain. It's a loving note of tribute and more than anybody will get on my blog when I'm found lying face-down in the cat's litter box, bloated from the gasses of decomposition. It's not like it's Tumblr's responsibility to post warning signs all over the place that life fucking sucks and, to top it all off, it just ends in the complete erasure of your existence. It's not like there aren't little reminders all around us every day which we desperately try to avoid although, when we can't, we frantically try to figure out a way to repress the reminder and get back into our heady, daily denial of the Faustian deal we unknowingly made with the universe! Because don't get me wrong! I'm glad I somehow, improbably, exist to experience all of this! But if the universe had an identifiable set of testicles, I'd definitely kick them as hard as I could.

I wonder if during the years Carl Sagan was battling with cancer if he ever just went into his backyard at night and flipped off the stars. That guy was way too optimistic and chipper. I'd feel better if I knew he had some bad days where he felt the full weight of the universe's mocking betrayal of his curiosity and wonder. Fuck you, universe! Fuck you!

I wish I believed in God because screaming "Fuck you, God!" is so much more satisfying than screaming at the universe. It's like calling the coffee table in the living room a cunt after stubbing your toe on it. I'd rather yell at the person who put it there.

I wonder how many people who believe in God just switched into their own issue after that and started yelling at me, "That's proof! Proof of God! Who do you think put the universe there? Hunh? Hunh? Hunh?!" I'm not falling for your simplistic arguments! If you can believe in a magical being who can do anything (but seemingly does nothing!) who has existed forever then maybe you can imagine matter that has, somehow, existed forever and isn't magical at all. It's just, you know, a mystery! Not God's mystery! Enough with God! Shove God!

At this point, you might be thinking, "Tess? Do you have anything to say about Harley Quinn?" It's a fair question! And a good one to since the answer is "No. No I do not. It's the same fucking comic book every month and I really don't have anything new to say about it!" I suppose I'll try anyway but I'll warn you: my Carl Sagan bit was the best part of this entire entry. It's all downhill from here! Probably. I mean, I haven't written anything else yet (or read the comic book, for that matter!) but I can't see myself being clever from this point on.


How cute! The BLAMs look like a little mushroom!

Hopefully an out of context panel of Harley firing off round after round from her AK-47 wasn't too disturbing for people constantly thinking about the next mass shooting. She wasn't doing anything intentionally horrible with her gun. She was just shooting out the windows of three floors of a hospital and endangering everybody within just to save Redtool's life. She's so thoughtful when it comes to people she knows!

Meanwhile, zombies are ravaging her neighborhood. But it's okay because her Gang of Harleys and all of her friends are safe. The people getting their arms ripped off and their faces bitten off and their legs torn off don't matter. You know how it is! Writers don't have time to write fulfilling conclusions to the story of everybody who just marginally appears in their stories. If they had that kind of time or interest or writing ability, why would they do what they did to Barb Holland in Stranger Things? Sometimes fucking a character in the ass and tossing them in the garbage is the only move an auteur has left, time and money being what they are. You know, time and money!

Luckily for the rest of the DC Universe, the zombies won't go further than a half mile away from the source of the infection: Nate-Man's Hot Dog Stand. I guess the alien that's infected them can't spread itself too thin.

Harley winds up falling off of the roof and into the horde of zombies. Previously, she didn't want to kill them because they're the people in her neighborhood, in her neighborhood, in her neigh-bor-hoooooood! But now she doesn't mind kicking their heads off because remember what I said about non-essential characters? Fuck 'em! They're like the Monster Men in my life! Their deaths only exist to remind me of my own mortality! Although, really, I just wish they'd stop with all of these reminders. But just like me, Harley decides she needs to do whatever she can to survive! In her case, that means having a great time killing her neighbors. In my case, that means playing video games until the constant thoughts of my eventual demise disappear into a flat hum in the background of my brain!

Harley's tits looked pretty good while she fought the zombies though! I didn't want to type that but I've decided to allow my Male Gaze at least one sentence per commentary. I have to pay a daily tithe to my masculinity or it'll go toxic!


Harley gets a few pages of crazy scenes like this as she Dead Risings her way across Coney Island.

Harley is rescued by her friends but then they all wind up trapped in the Bumper Car ring because apparently Nate-man's is a popular place to eat. They're surrounded by hundreds of zombies! It's the end for the heroes! Which is fine because why should they get to live when everybody else is dying? Seems so unfair, not to mention totally contrived.

But wait! One last savior appears and she's really doing the Dead Rising thing! Poison Ivy appears with a table saw blade attached to a weed whacker! Unless maybe it's just supposed to be a weed whacker but since when do those have blades in them? Maybe it's some kind of tree branch trimming tool! I might be able to tell the difference between a spade and a shovel but that's about where my gardening expertise ends. And speaking of endings, this is where the issue ends! What a smooth conclusion! It's like I'm back in high school writing another shitty paper that I was way too proud of! And I was probably just marked down right there for not writing "of which I was way too proud!" Mr. Borror was a dick! May he rest in peace. Probably. I mean, no way he can still be alive, can he?

Apparently he is! 82 years old! I actually really liked him but the dick thing wasn't too far off if you were a piece of shit who wasted his time. Check out his ratings at Mission College (I had him as my high school AP English teacher)!

The Review!
Just because I don't really have much to say about this comic book except that it's formulaic and repetitive, it doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable. It's just the no-calorie rice cake of writing! If you love Harley, you probably love this book. You get to spend twenty pages with her silly antics and cute tush and violent tendencies. It can be a fun ride! It's just a ride that maybe I've been on one too many times and I'm beginning to feel nauseated by it!

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